Alexa Python Tutorial

Build a voice experience in 5 minutes or less

Start building for voice with Alexa

Learn to build for voice with Alexa, Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind millions of devices including Amazon Echo. Alexa provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to create a more personalized experience.

Start building for Alexa with this quick walkthrough of the skill-building process. You’ll end with a simple but complete Alexa skill that can run on Amazon Echo or any device with Alexa. This tutorial uses the Alexa Skills Kit, AWS Lambda, and Python.

Use the Amazon developer portal to configure your skill

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Under Alexa Skills Kit, choose Get Started >.

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Choose Add a New Skill.

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Name your skill. This is the name displayed to users in the Alexa app. For this example, we’ll call it Color Picker.

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Create an invocation name. This is the word or phrase that users will speak to activate the skill. For this walkthrough, we’ll use the skill name Color Picker (case-sensitive). Users will say, "Alexa, open Color Picker" to interact with your skill. Choose Save to continue to development for Color Picker.

Test your skill one of three ways

Use the Service Simulator from the Test step of Color Picker development. Try entering Open Color Picker or My favorite color is red to see how Alexa responds.

Try the Echo Simulator Community Edition at Echosim.io. Simply click and hold the microphone icon and speak your commands.

Success!

Congratulations! You've created an Alexa skill. Now build a skill that's all your own.

With the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), designers, developers, and brands can build engaging skills and reach millions of customers. ASK is a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation, and code samples that makes it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa. With ASK, you can leverage Amazon’s knowledge and pioneering work in the field of voice design.